Future Primitive
Mike Jobes Lecture
This lecture had a lot of information and a lot of examples of the material we have learned in our class about the built environment. A living city was the main subject of this lecture. For many years, people have been trying to figure out how to make the natural and the urban core coexist in the same space, without having rural or suburban environments separating them. A living city would mean that it makes its own energy and cleans its own water. Green ways such as cleaning water and air naturally would be what it takes to make a living city. Making every 3rd street in a city a green boulevard, full of trees, a creek, forest like was an idea that Miller Hull was working on for downtown Seattle. In order to make this a living city, the buildings would have to have a limit of 5 stories to let light in every building and green streets. Mike Jobes wants to make the buildings cooperate with nature, not to have nature cooperate with an urban core like environment. He mentioned that although this process requires a lot of thinking and preparing, he envisions this plan happening 50 years or so from now. How would people react to the dense wild in the dense urban? The urban wilds would take some use to, not unlike any other “movement” America has been through, such as pre-fabricated homes or the super mall. The strip mall which is usually L-shaped with an island was looked at. Strips malls are great and should not be destroyed. It opens up opportunities for immigrants with low leases and brings layers of culture into the U.S.A. The idea was to make the strip mall a greener space, a Strip Mall Farm. Still having a building and parking, but above parking spaces would be huge trays of plants, and vegetables, and these trays could move up and down so the farmers would be able to take care of their production.
Having a sense of “Deep Time” was another subject he discussed. Feeling like you are part of something much bigger than what you feel. If you were to extend both arms on the side of your body, starting at the tip of your first arm would be the creation of earth, the creation of living things would fall on the elbow of your second arm, and only the tip of your nail of the second arm would be when humans were created. Hearing that just made me feel like such an accomplishment. We humans tend to forget where we come from and how amazing it is that we are here and we have invented so many things. I feel like we should repay the earth by making a greater effort on having a greener life such as living cities. The earth is sick, global warming is happening and we need to do something about it before it is too late.
Another subject of this lecture was about a project that Miller Hull took on. It was a house for Habitat for Humanity. It was called Habitat house of the Immediate Future. I have had experience on helping designing and helping with the construction of two habitat for humanity houses in the Palouse area. Seeing the ending product of the Miller Hull agency made me realize that there are many options you can pick even though you have a very limited budget. The house Mike showed up was very contemporary looking. He described it as a “Simple House” not referring to the aesthetics, but the construction of it. They used double stud walls, prefabricated parts, triple-glazed windows, fiber cement panels, and used rain water under the house for potable water use. All of this sounded very expensive to me, but since it came out as a net-zero energy house I guess that made up for the material costs.
Relating this material with the built environment is very easy. Looking at how people tried to separate their houses from the streets with trees was a great idea. Now the idea of having a forest as a street would be fantastic and bring neighbors together and make them socialize instead of getting in their garage and car and coming and leaving without saying a single word to anyone, or seeing anyone. I believe that the front door as the main entrance would be reintroduced if such a thing as the Urban Wilds would exist. This lecture has mainly about the city. We have talked about people wanting to get out of the city because of its illness, chaos, or just to get away from work. They moved out into the country, which then became suburbs. If the Urban Wilds were created, I believe that people would want to come back into the city. If they wanted to escape their jobs, or the noise of the city they could just walk down the next street and find a small forest there to relax and enjoy nature and clean air. It would be as equal as Central Park in New York, just much more accessible and repeated multiple times. Of course the automobile will still be in the picture, but in Seattle, the underground tunnel has been drilled and it will make way for more public transportation, and reduce the percentage of use of the automobile. This plan to have a true creek with salmon in cities might sound over the top, but we have seen this happen in suburb like areas. How hard would it really be to have clean water running trough the urban core? I would like to be alive and see this happen one day. I believe that this idea could lead to a great future for humans and the earth.
